General aspects
Metal forming - Mechanical and thermal aspects

Figure 1, which summarizes the main classes of processes used, illustrates the three main routes for manufacturing metal parts, depending on the starting state of the metal material:

• molding from the liquid state;

• shaping from one or more solid parts. This process can be subdivided into forming, or shaping without removal of material; machining, or shaping with removal of material; and assembly, where two or more parts are joined together (please refer to the articles in the section on Working with materials – Assembly in the Mechanics treatise);

• sintering from powders by elimination of intergranular...